The reason I bring this up is that apparently not only my hostel, but my room itself, is a hotbed for American traveler activity. Three out of the four I've met have roomed here at some point or another. It's getting pretty weird to say the least.
Not that this is a bad thing, it's surprising if anything else. To be away that long, stay in different places, go to so many different towns and cities; and almost all of the Americans I've met have came to my room.
The only other one I met was in New Zealand and that's because he saw me on the ferry from Wellington and asked me about my Carolina Panthers head warmer. See, Panthers fans, we're EVERYWHERE!
This brings me to Tim. I met Tim a couple of days ago here at the hostel. He's from California and we were exchanging stories, plans and general life information with one another. He's actually the one who inspired me to start this blog. He was only in town for a few nights because he was trying to buy a car and travel south. His trip around Australia is going to be much more extensive than mine and he plans on doing this mostly camping outdoors.
We talk and I tell him to do some research on the Blue Mountains before he leaves because I think he'd like it out there, especially to camp out. He does, buys his car and asks if I want to come with him. I had a couple of days off and I was planning on making these trips by myself anyway, but a car and a friend never hurts....especially when it's a friend WITH a car so I said "what the hell, let's do it".
We make an outline of stops, also pick up another traveler; a Danish girl named Marie who had only been in
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| Marie and Tim |
Not even an hour into the trip, we get are pulled into a random police check point. Tim has to submit to a breathalizer and we go on our way.
Why is this an important tidbit?
Probably because it was 10AM and they were looking for drunk drivers! Hilarious, only in Australia.
We start by traveling to Wentworth Falls and do some bushwalking, check out some of the beautiful Blue Mountain landscape and the spectacular waterfalls. I see why they call it the "Blue Mountains" now, because there are so many eucalyptus trees that from a distance in a wide open area the mountains themselves have a distinct blue "fog" around them, it's quite stunning really.
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| Hard to tell here, but they are really blue |
These are things I actually think about.
We stop and have lunch, nice pre-packed peanut butter and banana sandwich for me, and we head toward the Three Sisters (a huge famous rock formation), Sublime Point, the Leura Cascades (more impressive waterfalls) and finally the town of Lithgow, where we find a perfect camp spot on Lake Lyell a few miles outside of Lithgow.
We set up camp, start a fire to begin cooking our dinner, and of course, drinking. Reminiscent of the old west days where you don't have too much to choose from except whiskey and water. So we combined the two, mine and Tim's preferred drink even when other things are readily available. Marie, we got her fixed up with some rum and coke, so we were set for the night.I'm sure none of us realized it at first, but we stumbled upon a really magnificent campground. There was no one around as far as the eye could see, our company only included the lake, the rumblings of random animals in the nearby brush, and the stars.
I don't know if it's because I haven't been camping out far enough or in the right spots. But I have never seen so many stars in my life! We could actually see and point out different constellations. Orion's Belt, the Little Dipper, the Big Dipper, the entire Milky Way galaxy. Okay, maybe not the ENTIRE Milky Way, but I've never seen it period, so this was a big deal to me.
Not to mention the Mars sighting without a telescope. It could have been something else, but a small red dot in the middle of billions of white lights? It's fairly feasible that this was Mars.
2 wishes on 2 shooting stars later, our campfire goes out. Well, not out entirely but down to cinders. We have no light. We're pouring much stronger drinks now because we can't see the ratio anymore.
Then, as if on cue, the moon appeared. I'm not nieve enough to assume the moon appears in the sky out of nowhere. Again, this may be another example of how I haven't been out in the actual mountains camping before, but the moon was rising, literally!
From behind one of the many hills around the lake, we thought it was originally headlights or something else along the horizon but the longer we waited and the more we studied we realized that we were witnessing the moon rise. I've seen many sunrises in my day, many sunsets as well....never a moon rise.
It was a really spectacular night all the way around.
We woke up feeling oddly refereshed and ready for adventure. I'm assuming because we were drinking as much water as whiskey.
We hopped in the car and went to explore some of the Caves, did some more bushwalking and attempted to find a new campsite. We couldn't find one that was better so we went back to the exact same spot as the night before. I had an interview in the early afternoon the next day, so we had to catch the train back to Newtown at 7:30am. I couldn't help but reflect on what was happening and what had happened. I'm sitting in a camp ground in the Blue Mountains of Australia, I've seen the Milky Way, Mars, all sorts of constellations, 2 shootings stars, and a moon rise....with 2 other travelers from completely different backgrounds, who were strangers no more than 24 hours ago and now I consider them really good friends and I hope our paths cross again at some point.
That's when I realized how lucky I am, and this type of random stuff and activity...that happens to me on a regular basis is the type of things I like to, and need to share.
Because for me...this is what it's all about.
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| The Three Sisters |
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| Leura Cascades |
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| Wentworth Falls |
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